


Sure as the Suns

by yet_intrepid



Series: oh rise with me forever [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Female Character, Slavery, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6017209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her son came to her from the sand and the stars, a gift she was never promised she could keep. But sometimes she swears they are joined across the aching stretches of the desert, joined closer than when he sat heavy on her hip with his fingers caught in her hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sure as the Suns

Shmi finds Padmé outside. Guermessa is rising eastward as the other two moons fade in the west, and the air bites. Once the suns slip over the horizon, Tatooine is cold.

Padmé looks up as Shmi leans down to tuck a blanket around her. “Thanks,” she mutters, and Shmi hears the break surfacing in her voice.

So she sits down too, putting her arm around the shoulders of this child who has become hers. “You should sleep,” she says. “Grinding yourself to dust will not bring Ani back faster.”

“No,” agrees Padmé. She is looking back at the rising moon. “Nothing brings him back faster. Nothing brings him back at all.”

“Child,” Shmi starts, but Padmé’s shuddering breath hushes her.

“He is dead,” she says, and then, “Shmi, what if he’s dead?”

The word stings like venom, aches in her gut like starvation. But Shmi draws a deep breath and turns Padmé to look at her.

“Child,” she says again. “Listen. Anakin is not dead.”

Padmé pulls away. “We are blinding ourselves with baseless hope,” she says. “We must face the truth!”

Shmi lets her draw back, lets her wrap her arms around herself as she shakes. Lets the silence linger, honors the words.

“Padmé,” she says at last. “I do not offer you baseless hope. Little more than that, perhaps, but something.”

Padmé’s eyes flick over to Shmi’s, then away.

“Anakin and I have—a bond,” Shmi goes on. “That is all I can think to call it. From his infancy, I could sense him when we were apart. Knew when he was hungry or wet, and as he learned to walk I knew when he fell and scraped his little hands. If he were dead, I would know it. I swear to you, I would know it.”

Padmé runs a hand through her hair. “Like the Jedi,” she says. “So you can sense him now?”

“Faintly,” says Shmi. “Not well.”

“Is he—” Padmé cuts off. Covers her face.

Shmi reaches for her again and Padmé collapses into the touch. “Do you want to know?”

Padmé nods against Shmi’s shoulder. “Please.”

“Like I said, I can’t sense him well.” Shmi rubs circles on Padmé’s back. “There’s—distress. Exhaustion. Anger. But there’s courage, too.”

Padmé breathes in shakily. “And you’re sure—”

“Sure as the suns, child,” Shmi says. “Sure as the suns.”

Padmé curls tighter. “I hope he can feel you too.”

Shmi does not answer. She does not know. So she holds Padmé and looks up to the moon, praying the sand and the stars to give her son to her again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sure as the Suns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9287081) by [vinrebelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinrebelle/pseuds/vinrebelle)




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